Next Monday afternoon, the University’s President, Indira Samarasekera, will respond to questions that have been put to her by Professor J. Nelson Amaral (Computer Science) about her remarks in the Edmonton Journal on 17 January 2012. These are the remarks in which President Samarasekera refers to the cuts that we are currently experiencing as “modest.” Professor Amaral asks questions very similar to those we have been asking at Arts Squared. As one of the representatives of the Faculty of Science, Professor Amaral gets to put his questions to the President in the University’s most important governance forum.

President Samarasekera has offered one response to concerns about her remarks on the University’s official blog, Colloquy: http://www.ualbertablog.ca/.

If you would like to hear President Samarasekera’s answers to Professor Amaral’s questions in person, please attend Monday’s meeting of the General Faculties Council in the Council Chamber at University Hall.

And if you would like to pose your own questions to President Samarasekera, please feel free to do so here in the Virtual Square.

Here is one of our questions.

Given that the University Administration keeps telling all of us always to make the case to government for a minimum 4% increase to the Campus Alberta Grant, why is it that President Samarasekera did not talk about the cuts in the context of the 0% increase to the Campus Alberta Grant over the last two years? How wonderful it would have been if she had said, These are the unfortunate steps we must take when we do not have increases to the Campus Alberta Grant. We do not wish to make these cuts. We do not want to lose any of the ground that we have gained over the last few years as we have managed to recover from the cut-backs of the 1990s. Our talented people are our most important resource. We ask Albertans to urge the provinical government to invest in Alberta’s universities.